John Stumbles wrote:


I need something that'll charge cells independently because often enough
odd numbers of cells get used in kids' toys, so you end up with a
handful at different - and unknown - states of charge.

I'm very happy with a "FRIWO Exclusiv" I picked up from somewhere
(Canford Audio?) - 4 separate charging ways, each will take an AAA, AA,
C, or D cell, each gives a little display of existing state of charge,
and alleges to cater automagically for NiMH and NiCd.

So I try typing

FRIWO Exclusiv

into google. It's clear from the results that their prime market is
Germany and the Scandinavian countries ;-) Ah, it's called the "FRIWO
Gigabox", it seems; and Googling with those two words reveals at least
one UK supplier - who wants 95 notes for one!! As the price in its
native market seems to be around 90 Euros (still not cheap), I'll leave
you to repeat the Googling. (Canford no longer supply the Gigabox, I see).

If you only want a couple of cells individually charging, it'd be
cheaper to knock something up yourself using the Maxim charge-control
ICs - they're a few quid apiece from RS, plus PSU, cell holders, and so
on, plus the time to connect it all together (of course) using the
supplied Application Note suggestive circuit diagram.

As our favourite Philosopher Of The Natural World notes, the
model-control world is addicted to good fast chargers, though theirs
tends to be for whole packs where the individual cells can be expected
to be in a similar state of charge, rather than for individual cells in
odd-numbered combinations and varying states of charge.

(On the 'dissapointed' front, I did pick up a 10-way charger from one of
the better-known UK specialist rechargeable battery shops. Despite the
description I thought I'd read, it did cook NiMH cells that were left on
charge for a long time - p'raps its idea of "trickle" wasn't the C/50
rate recommended for NiMH but the C/10 one which any "normal" slow
charger pushes in, but in any case NiMH cells were getting notably warm
to the touch after an extended period in that - which in the Gigabox
they certainly don't (but still seem to be fully laden with coulombs ;-)

HTH - Stefek